save $$ on hard drives

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your data comes out the udders, only it's been magically transformed into a delicious, potable, creamy-white milk.

Past Life Regression

sitting down with a past life regression therapist

i learn that i was once a british orphan, scrubbing floors on my knees

i learn that i was once a chinese soldier, fighting for mao
i learn that i was once a very very very old woman in russia who didn't speak to anyone and survived only on rabbit meat and weak tea

Wolf Raised By People

Making her wear lady's gloves

Upon her wolfy paws

Always quick to mention

Her many wolfy flaws

She isn't good at tea time

She isn't good in school

She just curls up and goes to sleep

Her textbook's full of drool

"Sit straight! Don't slouch!

And comb your fur!

My goodness, how you shed!

And why's it always meat you want?

Not satisfied with bread?

How kind we were to take you in

And look how we're repaid...

You'll eat us out of house and home

Such sacrifice we've made!"

The she-wolf sighs; she tries and tries

It don't do any good

Instead of tea and school, she'd like to

Hunt deer in the wood

In her mind, she hears the phrases

That her benefactors said:

"If it weren't for us, by now

You'd be illiterate or dead!"

So she picks up her embroidery

And she fumbles with the thread

And makes up her mind to try again

To eat less meat, more bread.

Three Poems about the Eclipse

Eclipse, day. Eclipse, night.

Eclipse blurs boundaries between day and night.

Eclipse, hi. Eclipse, why.

I know something about your wily ways.

Eclipse, when. Eclipse, you.

You haven't had enough tomato sauce.

Eclipse, one. Eclipse, disaster.

Where did you put your clean knickers?

Eclipse, friends. Eclipse, not-friends.

The Great Betrayal.

Eclipse has many sides, for example

You could be a scientist and want the eclipse

to be for your experiments or

You could be a poet and want the eclipse

to give you a glimpse of cosmic beauty or

You could be a child with parents who neglect to buy you a pair of glasses and you burn holes through your retinas--yow!

When I went out to see the eclipse, it was cloudy and I saw only clouds

Other people: 'wow!' 'amazing!' 'totally worth it!' plus Instagram posts of them in their eclipse-glasses

pangs of wishing this cosmic line-up would align my mind with purpose--if only I had been there! but of course, if I had been there, it would have been a different me, there would have been a glitch in the web of all time, a pig staring at the web would have noticed the glitch and whined, all animals would suffer from an instant-knowing-they-were-about-to-be-killed-right-as-they-were-about-to-be-killed but wait, do they have that anyway?

The Crickets' Companion

When I saw all the dark angels gathering, their wings spread over the sky like black umbrellas, I put my pen down and chewed on the skin of my thumb.

When I saw them descend, voices booming, damning the sinners for their sins, I regretted that I had not lately called my mother.

When I saw the earth open up into a pit of hell, and the sinners slide down squealing like pigs to slaughter, I felt warm droplets of sweat form on my cheeks.

When the Great One appeared in blazing yellow glory, and called the saints to live in High Paradise by his side, I ran out to join the ascent.

The masses rose up above me, all those tall short old young fat thin rich poor who had done good in their lives, who had lived according to the Spirit, all of them rose above me so that I could see the bottoms of their shoes, millions of shoes, and, to my shame, I could see up the skirts of those who were wearing dresses…

And when all had been vacuumed up to High Paradise, I stood alone in an empty world, waving my arms and crying to the Great One that I had been forgotten.

When my arms got tired from waving, I lowered them, and heard the crickets chirp.

What am I now? I thought. I am no one’s employee, no one’s friend. I am no one’s son, no one’s lover.

There was no one to serve me ice cream. There was no one to check out my library books. There were no traffic sounds; no need to look both ways before crossing. I wondered if this was purgatory, or if I had simply been forgotten.

Forgotten.

I sat on a park bench and waited for the Great One to remember that I was meant to be vacuumed up as well.

But the stars came out, the shadows grew, and I was still just the person the Great One forgot. 

I ran around smashing some windows, whacking some fire hydrants with crowbars, just to watch them spew.

Was it because I had looked up the saints’ dresses as they ascended that I had been consigned to this leftover earth? Was that my final, subtle test of sainthood--had I failed?

I was doomed to chastity now, I realized. Unless I developed a liking for donkeys. Or sheep.

The crickets’ chirp grew louder, and I felt bad for smashing things, even though I hadn’t really hurt anyone. It wasn’t as if there were shop owners anymore.
I realized I didn’t have to go back to my apartment to sleep. I could sleep in the most luxurious penthouse in the city. I could sleep in the mayor’s mansion! But I went back to my own apartment anyway. I wanted to smell the smell of my sheets, and make sure my goldfish was still there.

Mrs. Mop

Mrs. Mop couldn't stop mopping--just couldn't!

She mopped the floors, then mopped again

Although she knew she shouldn't

She mopped the toilet, mopped the walls, and even mopped the ceiling

There was something about mopping

She found utterly appealing

"The soapy water, oh!" she sighed

"The mop head's soggy strings!

And dancing with the handle!

What merriment it brings!"

The floors were always wet, and so

They quickly started molding

Her children cried: "Stop mopping!"

And they gave their mom a scolding

"I only tried to clean," she said

"That's why I did the mopping."

"The problem is," her children said

"Your mopping is nonstopping!"

"I guess if all you kids agreed

To keep things clean and neat

I wouldn't need the mop

And you could put it on the street."

"Done!" her children answered

And they cleaned the house themselves

The mop was given up

Or maybe hidden in the shelves

And that's how clever Mrs. Mop

Who'd faked the whole obsession

Never had to clean again

And taught her kids a lesson.

My Uncle's Motorquacklers

In the motorcycle sidecar

Of my uncle's Yamaha

Are a pair of baby ducklings

That we nicknamed Zim and Za

My uncle didn't realize

That a duck had laid her brood

In a rusty motorcycle

That he'd hardly ever used

When we took them from the sidecar

They went 'QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK'

And kept up the commotion

Until we put them back

My uncle fixed the bike up

And took them for a spin

I made them little helmets

Out of rubber bands and tin

The children jump and giggle

As Zim and Za cruise past

My uncle honks his horn--beep beep!

And then speeds off real fast

My uncle is a fellow

Who enjoys a good duck roast

But now Zim and Za are famous

And my uncle likes to boast:

"It's the only Motorquackle

In a hundred thousand miles!

And everywhere I take it

All the folks erupt in smiles!"

The ducks who don't choose sidecars

As alternatives to nests

Might end up on a dinner plate

Divided, legs and breasts

But Zim and Za are special

They're as lucky as it gets

As official Motorquacklers

They're my uncle's favorite pets.

The Queen's Servant

the queen asked for a paw

'cause she wanted the claw

for a potion to poison

her daughter

and her servant said 'no'

"i'm no paw-cutter, so

i won't aid in your

hideous slaughter."

but that night as he slept

a slim feline had crept

to his bedroom

and mewled to awake him

he slurred: "shut your maw

or i'll cut off your paw"

and the cat slithered off

to escape him

yet the next night the cat

with a vengeance came back

and kept yawling

to keep him from snoozing

said the servant: "you creep!

if you keep me from sleep

i forewarn you'll end up

with a bruising!"

the third night, undeterred

the loud cat  that he'd heard

had arrived to continue

her mewling

so the servant awoke

and with blanket as cloak

he attacked her

to give her a schooling

with insomniac craze

and his mind in a haze

he dismembered the paw

of the kitten

and the murderous queen

entered quick on the scene

and snatched up the cat's foot

in her mitten

you can probably guess

that the end was a mess

and the queen made

her villainous potion

and the servant was seized

by such guilt and unease

'cause he knew that he'd

set things in motion

he felt anguish and pain

when the princess was slain

as he knew he'd

abetted the murder

and the moral is that

if awoke by a cat

you should know
it's indecent to hurt her.

That Lemon

that lemon will dress up in hot pants

that lemon will wriggle its butt

that lemon will slap on fake glasses

and show off his silliest strut

that lemon will fart with its armpits

which makes all the apricots blush

but one menacing wag of the juicer

and darned if the rascal don't shush!

the flower's funeral

at the flower's funeral, mostly bees attended

"it was a good flower," they said, "full of nectar."

that angel's touch

staring straight at the funhouse mirror

you see yourself with a unibrow

although you are looking straight ahead, in the mirror your eyes appear downcast

you see an angel on your right shoulder and a devil on your left

"those things aren't real," you think. "i don't have a unibrow."

you press your finger to the bridge of your nose and slide it upward with trepidation, wondering if you'll feel the thick frida kahlo bridge you just saw in your reflection

when you hit fuzz, you gasp

you decide to leave the funhouse and go to a regular mirror

the exit is down a corridor, and a woman in a long, white dress approaches you from the other end

she is carrying a hand mirror, which is facing toward you

in that mirror, your eyebrows are separated again

your eyes are looking straight ahead

the angel and the devil are gone

but, doubting yourself, you think maybe the funhouse mirror was true

did it show you the angel, devil and unibrow you never knew you had?

"angel," you whisper, "are you my conscience?" and a voice from over your right shoulder says, "yes"

"devil," you ask, "are you my bad intentions?" and a voice from over your left shoulder says, "yes."

you've almost forgotten the woman in the white dress who is now stripping, slipping the white sleeves off her shoulder, exposing her breasts.
"Oh no, no, no," you say, but the woman with the mirror says, "yes."

Ink Vampires

When teacher says, "Write answers down."
It's not that I don't think
I try to write an answer, but
Ink vampires drink my ink!
They're small and pink, and so they hide
Inside my pencil cases
And if you didn't see their fangs
You'd think they were erasers
And when you go to write a date
Like 1492
They suck the ink right from the pen!
Now what a thing to do!
It's cause of them I failed the test
And left the pages blank
I act'ly had a lot to say
But all my ink was drank.

Wrong Seasoning

My mum made a soup
Using abstract reasoning
It seemed she'd run out
Of allspice seasoning
The soup still smelled great
But you can't take a bite
Unless you can solve
A hard math problem right
"What's six hundred
divided by seven?" it said
I guessed "sixty-two"
And went hungry to bed.

The Lizard's Tale

My tongue is long
The desert's dry
Oh hidey ho, oh hidey hi
My blood is cold
So I sun on rocks
With one eye open
To look for hawks
The cacti are friends
I know them by name
That one over there
I call Spikey Maclaine
At night I hang out
In the skull of a horse
Where I meet my friends Igor
And Charlie of course
I ask how their day been
I ask what they ate
I ask if they had a close call
With a snake
"As big as a hose!
With a ten-inch long tooth!"
(That's Charlie--he sometimes
Elongates the truth)
We drink water, and when
We run out, we drink dust
From the cow skull we watch
The sky fade into dusk
The more dusky it gets
The more sleepy we feel
'Specially if we have had
A few bugs for a meal
The cacti stand guard
While we snooze for a bit
In my dream, my tongue's short
And the desert is wet
But when I awake
Hidey ho, hidey hi
My tongue is long
And the desert's dry

When Cream Puff Head Met a Fox

Cream Puff Head wore a suit and tie

With silver cufflinks from Versailles

And Cream Puff Head moved quick and spry

Down the streets of the busy city

And Cream Puff Head had a fancy job

As Cream in Chief of The Thrifty Squab

Which sold pigeon feed to pigeon snobs

And he had his own bird named Pretty

But one day Pretty flew the coop

She escaped her cage with a mighty swoop

And Cream Puff Head gave a horrid whoop

And screamed, "I'll catch you, Pretty!"

He ran outside in his dressing gown

She quickly flew to the edge of town

He tried, but couldn't chase her down

And a voice said, "What a pity."

"Who's that?" asked Cream Puff Head, surprised

And he saw a fox, unsupervised

"Hey, where's your cage?" he asked the fox

Who said: "I don't do well with locks."

"Well, fox, if you're so wise and free

Can you bring Pretty back to me?"

"I believe I can," the fox agreed

"Provided that you pay my fee."

"Anything!" said Cream Puff Head

"As long as I don't wind up dead."

"You won't," said the fox, "but I'll need to drain

Just a little cream from your cream puff brain.

It would complement my meal."

"Just a little cream?" the Cream Puff asked

"Right," said the fox. "Painless. Fast.

And Pretty's back 'fore the day has passed."

So Cream Puff Head said, "Deal."

Then fox scampered off, and was back that night

He'd grabbed a pigeon from midflight

The bird wasn't Pretty, but that was all right

'Cause Cream Puff Head had bad eyesight

"Oh thank you fox!" cried Cream Puff Head

"And now about our deal...I know I said

That you could have some cream, but how

'bout just some cash instead?"

"A deal's a deal, " the fox replied

He took a needle from his hide

And poked the Cream Puff in the side

To drain the precious cream

The Cream Puff Head felt woozy; dim

The cream was draining out of him

It didn't hurt, but it did feel grim

Like the world was a hazy dream

It took the fox just a little while

He caught the cream in a silver vial

And when he finished, Cream Puff smiled

And said, "That's it? Posh, pish!"

Then Cream Puff Head went back to his job

As Cream in Chief of The Thrifty Squab

And the fox made espresso creme with a daub

Of the freshest cream--- delish!

Innocence

Wet steeds with chestnut coats sip from the same milky trough.

The trough reflects the stars; two cowboys sit nearby and eat beans from a tin.

One cowboy sighs. He has undiagnosed cancer of the prostate; this creates uncomfortable pressure in his groin and he shifts slightly on his log.

Another cowboy recites poems in the simple present:

"Women carry armfuls of silver flamingos."

"Shut up, Jack," the other cowboy reprimands. He's had enough of Jack's nightly poems. The steeds lie down to rest.

"Handicapped men puncture lemons with thermometers."

"I don't like your poems, Jack. Stop it."

"Boys kick over buckets of mice."

The cowboy with the prostate cancer ignores Jack for a moment and looks at the black expanse of sky. The night is too hot. The heat makes him irritable. He dreams of being in the arms of his Eleanor. She is standing in front of him, breasts like peeled eggs, wearing thin whispers of lace...

"Little girls suckle peonies on fields of brains."

The little girls turn their heads when they hear this description: they had no idea someone was watching. Releasing the peonies, they run back to their houses to hide.

"I got them," Jack says triumphantly. "Sometimes the mere act of describing reality dissolves it."

"I don't care who you dissolved," says the prostate-cowboy, groping the mirage of great breasts. The lace crumples under his eager fingers; he notes from the texture of the breasts that they're illusory--yet another hallucination produced by loneliness and overconsumption of beans. Jack seems too pleased with himself for having dissolved the peony girls. Divine intervention would have removed the illusions from both men, but the cancer and poetry would not have disappeared, only been buried deeper into more unconscious realms.

love fantasy

yesterday i was sitting on a park bench

sipping lemonade wishing i could have been

born a man

then thinking about the hairy balls

and wishing i could have been

born a man without balls

and then deciding, no, better

to be born a chameleon with twisty eyes

perched on some rainforest vine

watching a toucan preen

or no, better to be born moon-dirt

white dust on a static face

or no, better to be born a clown

with a permanent honk-squeeze nose

or best of all to be born

a ball-less man with twisty eyes and a honk-squeeze nose

and i'd never smile or cry, i'd just

twist my eyes around, seeing everything in all directions

sometimes squeezing my nose for a comic honk 
but never moving from my park bench until i met my true love
who would probably be

ordinary.

Meteor Shower

A hundred nimble yogis

Beaming energies down from a spaceship

Did not behead the president

They weren't trying to.

Those same nimble yogis

A year later, half-starved,

Thinking about consuming each other

Wished they had beheaded the man

Who'd defunded 'Yogis in Space.'

This time, with feebler powers

Aiming downwards they tried to

Behead the president but his head

Came only partway off and surgeons

Were able to re-attach it.

The same chimpanzees that had fondled

Jane Goodall looked up to see where the beams

Were coming from, chimpanzees being particularly

Sensitive to interstellar beams

And when they learned those beams

Were sent for violence they beamed back up

Toward those hundred nimble yogis

Messages of comfort and peace

Ninety-nine nimble yogis

About to consume the weeklest, feeblest yogi

Halted with their forks and knives in the air

As the love of the chimpanzees washed over them

"Don't eat her," whispered the least feeble

The yogis nodded; put away their forks and knives

Helped the near-sacrifice to her feet

And each said: "I'm sorry."

But the near-sacrifice doubted

She could ever trust her fellow yogis again

One message from the chimpanzees had saved her,

But what about when the hunger resurged? Wouldn't she be the victim then?

She didn't know

That the president had re-funded 'Yogis in Space'

That veggie burgers would be arriving tomorrow

She didn't know

So her heart chakra burst open like a rusty pipe

And spilled stars.

A Merry Little Frogmas

'No Christmas this year,' I said to myself

'Screw Christmas. Bah humbug. Good grief.'

I cancelled my parties, tossed out the tree

And fed my dog all the roast beef.

I went out on my own for a walk in the snow

Through the frost-feathered meadows and hills

My mittens had holes and my socks were too thin

And I very soon shivered with chills

I blew into my hands to feel warmth from my breath

And rested a bit on a log

Then blinked 'cause I couldn't believe what I saw:

A tinsel-clad, caroling frog!

His neck was adorned with a string of white lights

A Santa hat topped his green head

Crimson tinsel encircled his slimy webbed feet

He was decked out in all green and red

"Have yourself a merry little frogmas

Let your heart be light

From now on, your troubles will be out of sight"

He warbled the song with a voice like clogged drains

Croaked so loud he was red in the face

You could tell all that belting was giving him pains

His voice leapt between tenor and bass.

And although I was grumpy and feeling remote

The sight of that frog made me smile

Despite the cacophonous croaks of his throat

And his skin tone's resemblance to bile.

In fact, I was even inspired to sing

Along with that off-pitch old frog

"Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow"

Our voices combined like a reindeer-drawn sleigh

In a wreck with a tractor-drawn plough

And once we'd concluded our cocktail of notes

The song finished off with ker-plop

Too shy or embarrassed to give me his name

The frog disappeared in the slop.

As soon as he left, I remembered again

The chill in my fingers and toes

The sky was beginning to powder my head

And frost nipped the tip of my nose

"So long, you old crooner," I said to the frog

When I heard myself speak, I felt silly

I thought to myself, "Was that frog really there?"

But saw tinsel threads left on the lily.

Once back in my house I ate green beans and toast

Since I'd given my dog the roast meat

Then I mended my mittens, so when next I went out

My hands could withstand snow and sleet.

I spent yuletide alone, but un-grumpy I felt

And when coworkers asked how I fared

I said I had "a merry little frogmas."

Some of them smiled. Some just stared.

The Snowman's Bride

The snowman's bride was six feet tall

A corncob pipe she sometimes smoked

She wore a tattered woven shawl

Her chest contained an artichoke

Said vegetable had been there placed

Because of her child-builder's quirk

He thought snow-people needed hearts

And that an artichoke would work

He built, of course, the counterpart

To this tall bride of icy white

A snowman with a hat and scarf

Just shy of his fair bride in height

But oh when this child-builder went

To steal a second artichoke

His mother said, "Oh no you don't! I need that!"

And she slapped the bloke

The boy, crestfallen, knew his groom

Could sport no heart of artichoke

And used an acorn shell instead

Which lay beside the yard's fine oak

And so their love unequal was

With love much stronger in the bride

And weaker in the groom, because

His heart was just an acorn's hide

And so the groom, when sun did shine

Stayed strong and tall and didn't melt

Was kept alive by that strong love

That his enduring bride had felt

But she herself, who was not loved

To same degree, did melt away

And that was worse, for soon

The stolen vegetable was on display

"You stole an artichoke to make

A snowman!" shouted child's mum

"Snow-woman," child-builder said

His mum thought, "He's obscenely dumb."

Meanwhile, the snow-groom melted down

To just hat, scarf and acorn shell

The squirrels stole and ate his heart

Which in the end was just as well.